


frozen wings

by shannedo



Category: RWBY
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Jacques Schnee is his own warning, Vytal Festival Tournament, atlas ball, minor Fair Game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-04
Updated: 2020-01-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:28:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22114861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shannedo/pseuds/shannedo
Summary: After two rounds fought and barely a hit landed against them, it was as clear as ever that Team CHRM were the shining jewel in the crown of Atlas Academy.Secretly, Winter was hoping it might be the leader’s partner who advanced to the finals of the festival.
Relationships: Qrow Branwen/Clover Ebi, Robyn Hill/Winter Schnee
Comments: 18
Kudos: 134





	frozen wings

**Author's Note:**

> cw: Jacques Schnee is very much himself in this one, so please be careful if **abusive parents** is triggering to you. Be safe, lovely people <3
> 
> for context:  
> Winter is 18 years old  
> Robyn & Clover are 21  
> Qrow is in his mid/late twenties  
> CHRM is Chrome

**HILL, ROBYN #53700-16554-90699**

The air was crackling around her. Her heart pounding in her ears. Time slowed to a crawl.

The roaring of the crowds seemed far away, like she was hearing them through water. The only sounds that seemed real were the thuds of fists, shots of ammo, storms of dust flickering and flaring.

Team VYLT was losing, that much she could tell. Her semblance gave her an uncanny grounding in reality, unphased by emotion and adrenaline. She saw the hits they were landing; the sweeping team attacks they were using. The team from Haven had known that they were going up against the bookies’ favourites and the reigning champions, had put up an admirable fight regardless, but CHRM was _winning._

Just as Robyn deflected a shot with her shield, Harriet ripped past her in a blur of colour and lightning. Clover and May stayed engaged in the heavy hand-to-hand, all while Harriet ran rings around them all and landed well timed cuts and trips, throwing their opponents off balance and off their guard. Somewhere in the desert enclosure, May had discarded her overcoat in the heat and was making short work of an opponent with a double-headed axe variant weapon. Her muscles strained and gleamed in the harsh sunlight. May had truly flourished since she came out and began her transition. _Our true selves are our strongest selves, and our auras follow that rule as well,_ the headmaster had told them.

In the mountain enclosure, Robyn ducked under another shot then used her lower centre of gravity to lunge at the opponent with bladed pistols. She knocked the girl’s feet out from under her, grappled herself to crouch on her toes and fired a bolt at the weak spot in the girl’s glimmering gold aura.

Almost too late, she sensed the boy on the team – the heavy hitter – lunging at her. She feinted backwards, rolling, and watched a dust-powered mallet swing just where her head had been. Oh. So _that’s_ how they were going to play.

The girl with the gold aura was leaping towards her, bladed pistols slicing the air, and the boy was rounding on her, mallet arcing upwards. Just for a second, Robyn was aware with startling clarity that this was not about to end well for her. Handy semblance.

But then, at the last possible moment, a line was tackled around her shoulder, harshly yanking her out of the way. And just like that, on the spot where her two opponents were converging, the stormy sky of the mountain enclosure opened, and lightning struck.

It was the final beating that the two members of VYLT needed, and they fried down into the red of their auras. Disqualified.

But she wasn’t much paying attention, too busy rolling her eyes and yanking the familiar modified fishing line off her arm.

“Saved your life,” Clover said, in that disgustingly smug tone of his, and he _winked._

 _Always_ just _in the nick of time._ If her progress in this competition wasn’t directly tied to his aura level, she might have slide tackled her partner there and then.

Her obvious irritation was water off a duck’s back to him, though. He was used to it by now.

With two opponents down, Clover and Robyn took a second to regroup. The roaring of the watching crowds was barely denting her focus, and realistically, looking at the screen, one of their remaining opponents was one good hit away from a knockout. This could become a very uneven fight very fast.

“What are you thinking?” Clover asked her, Kingfisher tightly wound and ready in his hand.

May was nowhere to be seen in the desert enclosure, and her opponent was reeling around searching for her, looking vaguely terrified. So fast it could be easily missed, Robyn saw a kicking up of sand and a flicker of lightning where there ought to have been nothing, and she decided that May and Harriet had everything in hand on that side of the arena.

So instead, she turned to their other opponent – this one with the much more damaged aura – retreating to the treeline in the mountain enclosure. This one’s weapon adjusted to a high-powered rifle, perfect to pick them off with from a hidden position. If she made it to the trees, Robyn and Clover would lose sight of her and be sitting ducks out in the open. She looked to the team leader, who read her expression immediately, and grinned. “Lucky Shot?”

She nodded. “Lucky Shot!” she called, and then launched herself into the air with a dust-propelled shot from her crossbow. In a move they’d drilled endlessly until their minds were numb, Clover whipped his line up and lassoed around her waist. With a grunt of effort from the huntsman and a dust-propelled shot from the huntress, Robyn was hurtling towards the retreating opponent at frightening speed. She raised the fan of her blades up and backwards and swung through right at the last second.

With a cry, the girl fell. An orange aura blinked and faltered, and there was the claxon of another combatant defeated.

“Yes!” she heard Clover holler behind her in celebration and she whipped around, throwing her arms up in celebration-

Her heart fell when she saw the final opponent running straight at Clover in a last-ditch attempt to take down one of them. The girl’s axe was raised, ready to fall, and Robyn’s partner was painfully unaware. Thinking fast, her heart in her throat, Robyn tugged harshly at the fishing line still grappled around her waist.

Clover toppled off balance, stumbled, and caught himself. But it was enough.

The swing of the double-headed axe _just_ missed, and before Clover could ready himself to retaliate, a flash of electricity appeared out of nowhere. May dropped her invisibility shield just as the last moment and Harriet, at the speed of light, swung up and caught their last opponent square in the jaw with her mechanically enhanced right hook.

The last girl fell with a resounding thud, a claxon indicating her aura was in the red, and the _real_ cheering began.

It was cacophonous, deafening, an entire arena that she’d been blocking out now rushing in and invading her senses. But she caught Clover smiling fondly at her, nodding his gratitude.

“Saved your life,” she parroted back at him.

* * *

**SCHNEE, WINTER #55900-16554-17106**

She had pretty much learned to tune everything out at this point.

The endless, pointless balls and dinners. The sharp, barbed words of her father. The way her mother would simmer with contempt that she didn’t even bother trying to hide anymore. And the flatterers who wilfully ignored the hostility so that they could bootlick and swindle as much favour for themselves as they could.

She had years of practice in letting it all fade into the background.

The ball her father was throwing for the finalists of the Vytal Festival was no different. A thinly veiled excuse to laude Atlas’s successes over the rest of the kingdoms and exchange self-congratulatory tripe. She tuned out the droning voices, along with the elegant orchestral music, and the demands for more champagne, _this_ caviar and _that_ vol-au-vent. She was looking for someone, and everyone else melted into the background.

After two rounds fought and barely a hit landed against them, it was as clear as ever that Team CHRM were the shining jewel in the crown of Atlas Academy. In the team round, CHRM had burned so bright and brilliant that none could fault VYLT for paling in comparison. And in the doubles round, the leader and his blonde-haired partner had advanced and shown Remnant some of the slickest, deadliest team attacks since… well, since Team STRQ, if it wasn’t too early to start making those comparisons.

Clover Ebi was impressive, there was no doubt about that. Winter’s own teammates – Corinne, Kara and Sable – hadn’t stopped gossiping about him and cooing over his ridiculous physique. And if the rumours could be believed, he had already been sought out by Major Ironwood, a rising star in the Atlesian military that _anyone_ would be wise to attach themselves to.

But secretly, Winter was hoping it might be the leader’s partner who advanced to the finals of the festival.

When Winter watched Robyn Hill fight, she could feel her heart in her throat and felt every near miss and landed hit like they were bouncing off her own aura.

She remembered her first semester at the Academy – it seemed so long ago now – and watching the victorious Team CHRM returning from their first professional-grade mission. They were greeted in the courtyard by the headmaster with medals for services to the school and to Atlas. Clover Ebi and Harriet Bree had beamed with pride. May Marigold had looked like she wanted nothing more than to put her semblance to use and vanish, lest all the watching eyes cause her to blush even harder.

But Robyn – when Robyn thought no one was watching, she had grabbed the medal around her neck in her hand. Flipped it over and over. Dark brows on tanned skin furrowing. She had taken the medal off and shoved it in her pocket, and then the most beautiful violet eyes had caught Winter watching.

Purple eyes trained on blue ones, just for a moment. It was fleeting. Then Robyn had stalked off, shrugging past anyone who wished to congratulate her, and Winter had stared after her. Wondering. _Wishing_.

She had resolved herself tonight to doing something about that. She refused to cower. As much as she struggled to feel warmth for her mother, Willow Schnee had taught her that much.

Robyn was graduating in a matter of weeks, a shiny new huntress licence within grasp, and the entire Kingdom at her feet. It dizzied Winter to think the heights that a woman like Robyn could reach. The titles she could have, the places she could be posted. For all Winter knew, the next time their paths crossed, she could be Robyn’s subordinate and bound by a strict code of emotional distance and detachment. It made sense of course – a leader could not deploy troops and execute missions if they were too closely attached to individuals – but the thought of never speaking to Robyn and keeping her distance out of propriety made Winter feel _ill._

So, tonight. Tonight was the night she had to speak to her.

She’d made up her mind. Now, she was just praying that she did not lose her nerve.

When she finally caught sight of Robyn, it could not have been more perfect if she dreamt it.

She sighted champagne blonde locks out of the corner of her eye from across the ballroom. When she turned, she saw the woman in question, making her way across the room. She was wrapped up in a gown just a shade deeper than her violet eyes. The folds of the fabric were gathered and secured by her bird emblem, at her hip and her hair flowed freely about her shoulders.

Winter had never noticed her beauty marks before. She felt her breath catch in her throat as she did.

Almost on autopilot, Winter moved one heeled foot in the huntress’s direction. This was her chance. Her chance to say something. _Anything._ Just to talk to her.

She stopped in her tracks when she felt a hand gripping her elbow. She whipped her head around and met her father’s grim stare.

“And just _where_ do you think you are going, _darling?”_ His moustache twitched on his lip. Not for the first time, she shuddered to think how much of him she saw when she looked in the mirror.

A couple of feet away, her mother was slurring her words, gripping onto the arm of some weaselly who had been trying to curry favour with her father. The man at least looked uncomfortable and put-upon in the face of her mother’s drunkenness. _Good,_ Winter thought, _let the weasel squirm._

It was no wonder though, that her father was not in a good mood. So obsessed with image, with making his children _perfect_ and securing a legacy. Shown up by the very woman who gave him that name that he so desired.

“I-“ Winter stammered, then looked over her shoulder, at where the most beautiful woman in the room was swirling a glass of champagne and looking spectacularly _bored._ She watched as Robyn shrugged off the wittering of an older man in a tuxedo, and then made some joke that caused a waiter with a tray of empty glasses to laugh out loud, despite himself. Winter looked back to her father. “To talk with someone from school.”

Father had followed her line of sight, though, and immediately understood. “The _heiress_ of the Schnee Dust Company has more important people to speak with,” he reprimanded sharply.

His fingers were digging into her elbow, the soft flesh of her inner arm. Her eyes pricked. “She’s a finalist,” Winter protested.

“She’s from _Mantle,”_ Father hissed back. If any of the simpering Atlas elite around them could overhear, they said nothing. “We have _tablecloths_ of finer material than that rag she’s wearing. She’s a _gutter rat._ ”

“And you are _vile,”_ Winter yanked her arm so harshly out of her father’s grasp that she felt his sharply trimmed fingernails catch and drag on her pale flesh. Pain flared and her eyes brimmed with tears, but she made a sharp exit towards the balcony, ignoring the bleariness of her vision.

The icy winds of Solitas caught her full in the face as she threw the doors open, but she did not stop until she reached the marble balustrade. Guests in their rich ballgowns and tailored tuxedoes parted in her path, retreating at the sharp _clack_ of her heels and the pure fury on her face. She didn’t even bark a word and soon she was left completely alone. Total silence but for the winds whistling over the neatly trimmed gardens.

The moon was reflecting off the white marble, casting an even ghostlier glow than usual onto her skin. Winter pressed the flaring pain in her forearm onto the icy cool stone, hissing in relief. She breathed in deeply. Held it. And then out.

She had watched Weiss do that once. When their father had been berating her for singing _like a strangled cat_ , as if Weiss could sound anything less than angelic.

When Father’s ire was turned on him, Whitley just _sobbed._ Too young to understand how anyone could be so cruel.

And Mother – well, Mother had her ways of coping.

She could feel hot tears tracking down her cheeks, but she could not bring herself to care. Atlas could turn them to ice for all she cared. This place had its way of doing that.

She breathed in deeply. Held it. Shut her eyes. When she breathed out and opened them again, a Beowulf wrought in ice, glowing softly, was looking up at her from where it was summoned in the gardens. She sighed. She might only be able to surround herself with monsters, but at least these monsters did not wear masks.

“Some party,” a voice said behind her, and Winter jumped violently in shock. Forgetting her training, as per usual. _Stupid,_ how could she let her guard down like that?

She looked back to see Robyn, shutting a heavy, gilded door behind her. Her dress and her eyes could have been black and her hair white in the glow of the moon. “Isn’t it just?” Winter muttered, barely audible, and looked back out across the gardens. Suddenly, she was painfully aware of the wreck her makeup was likely in, and the petrified guests she’d sent scattering. She dabbed at her cheeks with the back of her hand. Sniffed pitifully. Refused to break eye contact with the looming white monster in the gardens.

Behind her, Robyn let out a low whistle as she neared the balustrade. “I gotta admit, Princess, I thought they let you into the Academy because your daddy asked them real nice,” she said. There was a deep rumbling low in the chest of the Beowulf summoning, and the ghostly spectre growled at her. “Nice to see you actually have a few tricks up your sleeve.”

Winter shot her a cold look. Was she here to _gloat?_ “Everything I have at the Academy, I _earned.”_

Robyn caught the flash in Winter’s ice blue eyes and held up her hands in surrender. “Nobody’s arguing with that,” she said. “I just mean… it helps. When you’re everything that they want, nothing else.”

Winter laughed a bitter laugh. “I’m nothing that they want,” she said. “I’m emotional. Angry. _Unpredictable.”_

“Good,” Robyn said. Suddenly, there was a warm hand on her cool one – laid over each other on the marble. Winter’s breath caught, her heart stuttering in her chest. She looked down at their hands – one golden, one silver. “Don’t lose that.”

Winter’s brow furrowed. She wasn’t sure what Robyn was trying to tell her. Their entire team, they were built on the ideals of the Academy, the perfect example of obedience and excellence. They would be leaders, heroes of Atlas, who would shelter the people from those who would seek to do them harm. Clover Ebi was practically inducted into the military already, after all, destined for great things. Then- what had she said again? “You said that it helps. To be what they want you to be. It helps you earn what you seek,” she looked into purple eyes. Nearly black in this light. “You’re speaking from experience?”

There was a flash of light that startled Winter – from where their hands met. Pale purple. And then green. Robyn yanked her hand away like she’d been burnt. Winter tried not to mourn the loss. “Sorry,” Robyn breathed. “That can be… inconvenient, at times.”

“Your semblance?” Winter asked, her voice sounding painfully delicate in her ears.

“Truth touch,” Robyn said, and let out a humourless chuckle. “To answer your question – even though you already know – yes.” She looked out over the sweeping gardens. The neatly manicured hedges and trimmed grass and glassy water features rippled only by the wind. She seemed so out of place here. Like she was the wild elegance of nature that the Brothers created, in a place that was but a poor imitation of her beauty. “I love Clover. He’s the brother I never had. But I can’t say it doesn’t hurt. Clover doesn’t ask the uncomfortable questions – the ones that they don’t want you to ask. He’s perfect to them. A leader who inspires and innovates, but who remains _just_ servile enough for them to keep under control. Part of me wants everything he has. Part of me – the bigger part, I think – wants him to ask exactly what it is that he’s giving up by following that path.”

“Chrome,” Winter said, and bit her lip. “Your team name. So shiny and perfect on the outside, it almost begs the question of what’s wrong on the inside.”

Some of the darkness seemed to leave Robyn’s face at that, and it made Winter glad, to know that she could do that. Bring Robyn back to the friends that she loved, make the world seem a little less dark. The older woman quirked a dark, unruly eyebrow. “Are you telling me that if I let Clover call us Charm, this would’ve all worked out perfectly?”

Winter smiled and gave the other woman a nudge. “Like a charm,” she said, the corner of her mouth twitching.

The way Robyn snorted was so unattractive, Winter couldn’t help but let it melt her heart. Her nose scrunched up, her shoulders shook, and Winter felt like she’d do anything to keep making her laugh.

There was a beat of silence after that, but it was not uncomfortable. They just stood, side by side, looking out over the gardens, enjoying the brief peace that they had brought each other. Then, Robyn turned her head and looked down at Winter’s dress. Any ease in her expression was gone and she frowned deeply.

The dress was a pale and elegant thing, and Winter hated it. She couldn’t stand wearing dresses. It felt like launching yourself into a fight without a scrap of armour. And at these balls, she _needed_ armour. But, as her father had reminded her more than once, the heiress to the Schnee Dust Company must present herself appropriately to Atlas high society. Because it would somehow all be for nought if they saw a woman in a suit.

Winter looked down now though, following Robyn’s line of vision and bit her lip when she saw the red streaks that criss-crossed her side from where she had brushed her dress with her bleeding forearm. They stood out starkly against the pale fabric of the dress, drying to a deep brown now. She couldn’t even say she felt surprised.

“Does he do that often?” Robyn asked so gently that Winter couldn’t even begrudge her the question.

She sniffed and looked down at the drying blood on her forearm. “Like this? No,” she said. It was true. The physical stuff was the least of it. “But he makes sure you know your place.”

Robyn’s eyes did not leave hers. She gently laid her hand on Winter’s forearm. “You’re not what they say you are, Winter,” she said. She wore a small, sad smile. “You’re so much more than that.”

Winter’s heart was thudding in her chest. Swooping viciously between her darkest emotions and the way that Robyn Hill made her _feel._ Lighter than air, swifter than water, _invincible._ Robyn was so close, Winter could feel the warmth emanating from her caramel skin and kind face. She smelled like rainfall and running water. Crystal clear.

Before she could stop herself, before she could convince herself it was a bad idea, Winter leaned in and pressed her lips to Robyn’s.

It was chaste and dry, and Winter felt heat flood her cheeks, but Robyn was smiling that soft smile at her when she leaned back, so she couldn’t bring herself to regret it.

The hand was still on her forearm, rubbing small circles there.

Winter didn’t ever want her to stop.

* * *

**EBI, CLOVER #53700-16554-90698**

Clover had lost Robyn at least an hour ago, and at this point he was sick of searching for her. He’d had enough – he was ready to get out of this damned monkey suit, and if _one more_ rich lady with nothing better to do made a veiled pass at him in front of her husband-

He sighed, and took a second to calm himself, because the people in this room would likely be his entire future and career, and he didn’t need to go wrecking things before they’d even started by letting a childish temper tantrum get the better of him.

But just because he refused to lose his temper, didn’t mean he had to hang around this circus for a second longer.

He glanced at his scroll once more – just to check his partner hadn’t sent him a message – and upon discovering it was almost midnight, decided he would steal out the staff entrance. Because _that_ was the kind of place this was.

Giving the room a once over to ensure he wasn’t being watched, he quickly dipped out the side door to the ballroom he’d watched the staff using.

He was still looking over his shoulder to make sure he wasn’t being followed by some randy old lady when he crashed headlong into- _something._

“ _Argh!”_

Or _someone._

Clover grabbed hold of the person he’d crashed into to keep them from both tumbling to the floor.

When he looked up, deep red eyes blinked back at him, looking more than a little pissed off.

“I’m so sorry!” he hurried, helping the man upright. His tongue was tying itself in knots and he had his hands on the man’s shoulders, then pulling his suit jacket straight, _then_ he dropped his hands and cleared his throat when he realised how ridiculously _pretty_ the man was.

“Watch where you’re going,” the older man grumbled in a gravelly tone. The scent of alcohol on his breath was overpowering. “ _Kids.”_

If Clover had been in a bolder mood, he might have pointed out that he was maybe five years younger at the most. But the smart person in his head – definitely Robyn – said that being rude to someone after nearly knocking them over wasn’t the best approach.

In the brief beat of silence, however, the older man had latched on to the clover pin on his lapel and was raising one black eyebrow. “Oh, you’re _that_ kid,” the man looked deep in thought for a second, his brow twisted quizzically. “Ha. Figures,” he said, more to himself than to Clover.

“What?” Clover said, rather dumbly.

The dark-haired man shook his head. “Nothing. Nothing. I just wondered if we would cancel each other out or just create chaos. Guess the crashing into each other thing explained that.” he carded a hand through hair as inky black as a raven’s wing.

Or a-

“The name’s-“

“Qrow Branwen,” Clover stuttered. He knew that this man’s freelancing took him all over the globe, but to _Atlas?_ It was like someone had answered Clover’s prayers. How many hours had he spent pouring over old footage of this man, his team? He grasped one of the man’s – surprisingly slender and fragile – hands in his own and shook vigorously. “Yeah. I know.”

The man in question looked a little panicked, a little bewildered, and a little embarrassed. “Okay,” he said. A living, breathing, talking legend.

The older huntsman nodded, as if to confirm to himself that that had just happened, and he wasn’t going crazy. Then he stepped around Clover, about to continue down the hall.

Thankfully, though, he had second thoughts and turned back to look at Clover. “You’re pretty good out there,” the throaty voice wasn’t really what Clover had expected, but it was somehow better. “And I don’t say that to people often.”

Pride flared in Clover’s chest at that, and he felt if he grinned any wider, he might burst with excitement. “We’re going after all your records,” he said, even though he had no idea what possessed him to do it. “Back to back Vytal tournaments, highest huntsmen rankings whilst still being students, all of it.”

Qrow Branwen looked him up and down for a second. Then he smirked that same smirk he wore in his fights. Cocky, brilliant, devious.

“I’ll be watching.”

**Author's Note:**

> Ahhh so I hope you guys liked it! I've been desperate to write about Robyn/Winter (Schneewood Forest, Puffyn, whatever you want to call it) for ages now and I'm glad I finally sat down and got something done. It's not my best writing, but I enjoyed writing it, so I guess that's what matters lmao. Also I couldn't resist sneaking in a lil fair game at the end because I have no self control.
> 
> Let me know what you thought with a kudos or a review!
> 
> And you can catch me on tumblr @baelonthebrave


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